Cycle
by asherlev1
Summary: Sasuke tears himself apart from the inside out.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

He's pale-skinned, with a gaping hole in his heart that bleeds the color of strawberry jam, smeared all over his sculpted chest. He hides it within the folds of his well-pressed (laundry is every Sunday) black shirt, matching red and blue Uchiha fan on the back, and goes on with his days, step by hurting step. He narrows his eyes, a charcoal black (too often close to that whirling, tumultuous red), and he stares into the horizon, past the bleak trees and drowning sun, to catch a sliver of his brother's reflection in the sky, to hear that fateful whisper, "hate me, foolish little brother"; because these days, it's the only thing that brings him peace.

Naruto has the golden straw hair, and he's a reject at times, but his skin glows a million shades of vermillion stronger than his body can ever hope to achieve; there's a fire of pure hope lighting _him_ up from the inside. The nine-tail whiskers are black, cruelly defining his face in a way Sasuke wishes Itachi had defined his - the morbid wish for Itachi to have scarred his face so thoroughly no over could ever have taken him for anything other than his brothers resurfaces more than usual these days, and it hurts just as much to not think about it.

Sometimes he visits the compounds (mostly on Wednesday, after sparring) and lays on the ground where he and Itachi used to sit and read ninja fairytales, back when his mother had a say in anything they did, just inhaling the smell of the dirt, as if recalling days long gone by. Sometimes he swears he can see his mother trail past his closed eyes, in a brilliant red yukata, folds of silk slipping over his upturned face.

Somedays, when Sakura holds his hand a little tighter because _her _mother's (Sasuke imagines her in a pale, nondescript yukata, so different from those his mother wore) yelled at her, and nudges her head underneath his shoulder, the blood jam congeals. Sasuke tries not to let it, ripping a new bloody hole inside with his bare fingers, burning incense to the memory of his traitorous brother with every gouge he digs into his skin, but sometimes Sakura makes it so_ hard_ to enjoy the pain that normally comes with memories. So he stamps his own imprints all over her skin, marking her chest with long, bruising scrapes of pain and hurt and rejection. "You're annoying," he tells her, before turning to Naruto, because even the fire in his face is easier to look at then feeling the grasp of Sakura's healing fingers over his heart, cold but soothing. He scrapes into her just as much he scrapes into his self, in order to bear the small, traitorous feeling of warmth that blossoms in his stomach sometimes when he's with her. While Itachi's out there, he can't - can't' ever -let that happiness take root.

But some days, when she smiles a little brighter or asks him if he's okay after a sparring session with that goddamned 'Sasuke-kun' at the end of every sentence, he feels it sprout wings and lift itself up, fighting with all its might against the charred insides of his burnt, burnt heart. And sometimes, he lets it stay for a while, fighting to stay alive, even though it is all he can do not to stomp it down again. On his good days, he'll 'hn' back at her, and press a few quiet 'I'm fines' into the impressionable recesses of her heart, and she'll smile back more blindingly (he imagines her mother in a fuchsia pink yukata than, to match what must be pink hair) and he'll continue to stoke the little root of happiness just a little more, before the memory of his brother and the shadows of his past will inevitably shame him into scratching a few more marks into that milky skin of hers, and he knows she'll go home and cry, feeding the flames of a dying hope that maybe, one day, he'll come to love her.

The pain will be gone then, the pain of feeling too much, and he'll continue living, somehow senses re-heightened with her affections temporarily contained, always swirling though, he knows, like an ill-contained tide of water against weakened wood. Because that's all he can do - all he knows _how_ to do. He loves to hurt her because it frees him to lose himself in his past, but on the days he can't afford to, he only tightens the thread of their destiny tighter around themselves. And everyday he hates himself for it.

One day, he breaks. He thinks he should have seen it coming, really. Talks with Kakashi, creased eye out, Naruto, smiling and chattering, and Sakura, so innocent and adoring, became too much. Ayame looking at him, carefully, as if knowing his secrets, watching him with - was that pity? It seemed to be all he saw these days, became too much. Too often, he wanted to hurl his bowl of uden out at the sky, to see it rise like an escaping bird, and then fall, inevitably caught and trapped in some predator's net, to splatter over the ground, broken shards catching people's bare feet by surprise. It doesn't surprise him that he's feeling so vindictive yet again, not when Itachi's ghost haunts this very building, when with every bowl he eats he can feel Itachi's hand on his shoulder, patting him and telling him things, Itachi's nails on his back, digging just that bit more when something bothered him and that bitter expression took root once more, Itachi's breaths in his ear as he gave him a piggy ride after the meal, turning his head to whisper jokes, and the memories of what could have been ,what _should_ have been, memories of all that he'd lost, swelled within him until he wanted to rip the lace on the countertop - Ayame - inside out, piece by piece.

But he doesn't. He never does any of that. Because he's a doll. A perfect little mechanical doll made to follow all that Itachi has told him to be - all that_ Itachi_ had made him be. Because it is all he _knows _how to be

.

So he breaks, but he doesn't show it. And he'll continue breaking every single day for the rest of his life, even if he catches Itachi and kills him, even if Ayame leaves him and dies, even if he catches Sakura within his fists, shakes her until she bleeds, and then marries her to make her his ghost-bride; because all he'll know to do is to hate and to bleed and to tear his own heart apart, second by second. Because he's a doll; a doll that hates, a robot - all that Itachi ever wanted him to be.

And he'd do anything for Itachi, even kill him.

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Some days, it's not so easy to hate. On these days, he'll wake up to a clear sky outside his balcony, the class fogging with the steam of his wistful breath, and he'll go to Sakura, begging her with his eyes to heal his scabbed heart. She obliges - she always does. So he'll kiss her, breath hot and demanding, mouth slanting over her yielding one, tasting of all that she has to offer, tongues snaking in and out of each_ other_, and when he's drunk of his fill of live-giving elixir, he'll go home and drown himself in his poison, gouging more holes in his skin; because the sky's a dark and stormy gray now, it's going to rain, and Itachi would be disappointed if he ever let the seed of happiness in his heart grow into something more. So he drowns the root, feeding it poison and physical exertion, until it dies out, and she looks away from him, ashamed of them -herself - and talks to Naruto, while he goes out to the training ground, and maps a few more scars over of his body.

Until it's finally Sunday again, and he's aching for more, because her hair is pink and he imagines she'll taste like Ichiraku when he went there with his brother, of his dad when he paid him attention, maybe even of his mother when she would come out in her obi and teach him about the garden. So he goes to her once more, and she lets him in - she always does.

A/N: I wrote this a long time ago, in terms of my growth as a writer. Well, not that long ago. But back when Iwrote it I thought it was good; needless to say, it's not really. I figure - why _not_ get some feedback? Maybe I'll edit and polish and re-post this...


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